The Lake County Courthouse in Lakeport has no court in it anymore, and county supervisors take the first formal step toward a new name Tuesday.
Lake County Superior Court has vacated its offices on the fourth floor of the building at 255 N. Forbes St., according to a staff memo from Stephen Carter, the county’s interim public works director. Every office left in the building belongs to county government. The court moved to a new courthouse at 675 Lakeport Blvd. The Judicial Council of California, which built it, lists Sept. 8 as the day it was occupied. Among the reasons its project page gives for the new building: the old Lakeport courthouse is rated a “Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) P-154 High-Risk, seismically deficient building.”
The county says the Forbes Street building has been called the Lake County Courthouse since it opened in 1968.
Carter’s memo for Tuesday asks the Board of Supervisors to “approve starting the process to rename the building” and schedule a public hearing. It’s item 7.5 on the agenda for the board’s 9 a.m. meeting, held in the same building, with no set time. The meeting can also be joined on Zoom at https://lakecounty.zoom.us/j/86533544962, passcode 726865.
Supervisors won’t settle the name Tuesday. When the board first took up the idea Oct. 6, Carter told supervisors, “this would not be the final say.” He said a proposed name gets a public notice and a 30-day comment period before the board acts.
Civic Center led a public survey
On Oct. 6, supervisors agreed to put the question to the public. The county posted a survey Oct. 7 and kept it open until 5 p.m. Oct. 21.
It offered eight names. The top four, as reported in Tuesday’s memo:
- County of Lake Civic Center, 34.17%
- County of Lake Government Services, 17.87%
- County of Lake Government Offices, 16.93%
- County of Lake Government Center, 13.48%
The survey told people to “choose one or more of the options below, or suggest an entirely new name.” The memo doesn’t say how many people answered.
Supervisor Bruno Sabatier had a different idea Oct. 6. He pointed out that the building sits on Forbes Street and said Lakeport’s original name was Forbestown. “I’m thinking Lake County Forbes Civic Center,” he said.
The survey’s version left Forbes out. It read County of Lake Civic Center.
The county’s naming policy treats existing names as having “historic recognition” and says the county should keep them “unless there are compelling reasons to consider such a change.” It also says the person or group asking for a new name pays for replacement signs. The cost lines on Tuesday’s memo are blank.
The state still holds rights to the fourth floor
In October 2024, county staff told supervisors the court’s departure was “a unique opportunity to consider potential reallocation of that space for County use.”
Lars Ewing, then the public services director, and Carter, then the assistant county administrative officer, wrote that memo. It also said the county can’t simply move in. The state court system’s Administrative Office of the Courts “maintains equity rights in the current Courthouse, and use of the fourth floor would require the County’s acquisition of those rights,” the memo said. A 2008 joint occupancy agreement sets out the terms. Staff planned an independent appraisal of those rights in summer 2025 “as a starting point for negotiations.”
The same memo put the cost of modernizing the building’s heating, ventilation and air conditioning at about $2 million and recommended timing that work to the fourth-floor vacancy. It estimated a remodel of the board chambers, “essentially unchanged since 1968,” at $650,000 to $750,000.
Tuesday’s memo doesn’t mention the fourth floor’s future, the equity rights or the appraisal.